


Two Blue Lines

by KamalasFanfiction



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), Robin: Son of Batman (Comics)
Genre: Damian Wayne is Batman, Damian died in a vague League mission, F/M, Giving Birth, It Takes a Village to Raise a Child, Morning Sickness, No gendered language is used to refer to the reader though they can give birth, Older!Damian AU, Other, POV Second Person, Reader Insert, Talia was redeemed after R:SoB, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-02 11:31:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6564472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KamalasFanfiction/pseuds/KamalasFanfiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Week three, your stomach rounds out, your period late two weeks, and, swallowing with no little amount of effort, you buy a pregnancy test and grasp it in a white-knuckled hold all the way back home. </i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Two blue lines on a stick and you throw up again, no morning sickness needed. </i></p><p> </p><p>-</p><p>Damian's gone, but there's a kick in your stomach that says otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Blue Lines

You throw up the day after the funeral, in the bathroom you used to share. You don’t know if it’s because you saw his razor on the edge of the sink and thought about how you were going to throw it away or because his clothes are still in the hamper to be washed. You rest your head against the porcelain rim and count to ten and, when you push away, you’re struck with another wave of nausea.

You stay in the bathroom, thinking ‘just in case’ while sitting beside the toilet, until Alfred knocks and asks if you’re alright. A weak, “Yeah, sure.” that you don’t mean, and he turns the knob. 

It becomes a ritual- early in the morning, you run to the bathroom, and someone sometimes holds your hair back. Sometimes Titus comes into the bathroom and his cold nose pokes you in the back of the knees, and you hope Damian can’t see you where ever he is, because you look pathetic when you wrap your arms around his neck and sob into his fur. 

Week three, your stomach rounds out, your period late two weeks, and, swallowing with no little amount of effort, you buy a pregnancy test and grasp it in a white-knuckled hold all the way back home. 

Two blue lines on a stick and you throw up again, no morning sickness needed. 

Cass is the first one to notice- the way your feet swell and the slightly hobbled manner you’ve taken to walking. She cries, closed-mouthed, her palms flat on your stomach, and, with a wobbly smile, tells you Damian always loved to spoil you, of course he would give you one last gift. “Do... Do you want to tell the others?” You’re crying, and she’s crying, and her hands shake when they wipe your tears off your cheek. 

Pregnancy test in your right hand, a vague thought about how unsanitary it is, you throw it in the middle of the table before dinner is served. Jason is the first one to swear, the first one to recognize the significance and stand up out of his chair. Bruce, late to the table because of some case he was working (no one wanted to be Batman after Damian died, but someone had to put the cowl back on), freezes in the doorway, mouth falling open. 

Alfred dropping the food, metal clattering. Dick coming around the table to wrap his arms around your shoulders. Jason’s mouth fumbling between a smile and a frown- ‘congratulations’ and ‘condolences’ twisting on his tongue. Tim asks if you’re going to keep it- it’s fine if you don’t, it’s your body. Bruce’s hands shake when they pick up the pregnancy test. 

Everything seems peripheral, nothing in focus.

Two blue lines. 

“I want to speak to Talia.” No one asks you why, but dinner is eaten in mournful silence, Bruce never once touching his food. 

Jason and Cass hold onto both of your arms when you board a flight to Pakistan the next day. 

-

Talia is tired when she meets you at the outskirts of Nanda Parbat. “We are both grieving.” She says, and Cass’ left foot taps the edge of your right, ready to sweep you out of harm’s way. “I have no intention of involving myself in global affairs while my son’s death is fresh on my mind.” Her mouth folds downward, a deep frown, her words just barely having the edge of anger. “You dare come to my home and make assumptions- it’s your family that killed him. His father’s legacy, not mine.”

“We’re not here to accuse you of anything, Talia.” You don’t ask Jason when he was allowed to be so familiar with her. It doesn’t feel like your place. You’re still staring at the bags under her eyes, the fact that Damian had her green eyes. “They just wanted to speak with you.”

Talia’s gaze turns to you- even though you were in the center of the group, she’d immediately focused on Jason and Cass. “I _am_ sorry that I did not attend my son’s funeral.” It sounds like a confession. While you’d only ever met once, you remember her nails biting into the back of your arm, her wide, unbelieving eyes when she’d told you she’d never believed her son would love. Talia al Ghul was many things, but she was also a mother, and one that wanted the best for her son, no matter how misguided her aim had been. Her voice goes lower, private. “I don’t believe I truly thought him dead.”

There wasn’t a body. Just Damian walking into a League mission and never walking out. You’d thought the same thing until you’d seen the casket go in the ground, the finality of it all. “I don’t blame you. I didn’t either.” There’s a long beat of silence. She’s still staring at you. 

It takes you a second to realize that her expectant gaze is because she thinks he might’ve come back. 

“He’s... He’s still dead, Talia.” Her mouth drops into a scowl again, and her shoulders drop. You don’t know what to say. 

“You’ve said enough.” She says, and starts to walk off, either no longer perceiving Cass or Jason as threats or not caring what they might do. 

“I’m pregnant.” You say, and she freezes, her sirwal catching the loose dirt in the cuffs. Talia turns around quickly enough for her braid to land on her chest, walks close enough to you that you can feel her breath on your face. “It’s Damian’s.”

“I know.” She says, and her hands come up from her sides, some strange affectionate spark in her eyes. Talia looks down at your stomach, barely rounded but noticeably different from the last time she’d seen you, to your face. “I...” She looks up, into your eyes, and it’s the first time you’ve ever seen her look _sheepish_. “I admit, I don’t know why you’re here.” 

Your heart hurts when you realize it’s not embarrassment on her face, but sadness. Her son, passed while they were on shaky terms at best, and you, showing up at her doorstep with a child sharing half of his biology in your stomach. 

Her face suddenly hardens, the slightest bit of anger in her squinting eyes. “I would never harm your child. What I did to Damian in the past-” Teeth ground together. “I would never inflict that on another child. You have nothing to fear of me harming your- my son’s-” She swears, under her breath, and Jason stares rather blatantly. 

“I wasn’t worried about- I just wanted you to know.” You swallow, not sure how to react to your grieving mother-in-law. “He didn’t... talk to you about baby names, ever, did he?”

“I was unaware that you two were trying for children.” Some of the sadness has left her eyes, and, when her hand touches your stomach, you can feel the chill from her hands. You don’t tell her that you both weren’t. “I don’t see the harm in naming the child after him, if you’d like.” She tilts her head, some bitter humor in her eyes. “Though, if you’re here to get my blessing to name them after me, if they are a girl, I do not extend it. For obvious reasons.”

“I assume that goes for Ra’s as well?” Cass’ hand tourniquets your arm when you make a joke of a similar cloth. 

Talia chuckles, her eyes re-evaluating you. “Even more so.” Seeing something she hadn’t when you’d briefly met her before, at your insistence and Damian’s reluctance. “You’re welcome to a cup of tea before you go.” She looks at both Cass and Jason, as if she’d just noticed them again. “The three of you, of course.”

When you return to Gotham, you start to notice the occasional assassin in the League’s garb outside the Manor. You don’t mention it.

-

Dahma comes into the world, twenty inches, eight pounds, giving you contractions painful enough to let you know that she definitely had al Ghul blood in her. There are eight people in the room, three outside of the room’s window, and the nurse is just trying to get enough elbow room to cut the umbilical cord. 

Bruce apologizes and shifts to the right, into Talia, who rolls her eyes and pushes him further along, before focusing on you. You’re tired, it was hard labor, and yet your eyes are still keen, watching your baby take her first breath and let out an earth-shattering cry. When the nurse takes her away to clean her (your gown stained with afterbirth), Talia watches your hands follow your taken baby, and her hand on the back of her waist looks like she might pull a weapon. 

Barbara rolls up to your bedside, having to maneuver around Jason and Dick, who were shoulder-to-shoulder in the small hospital room. She brings out a water bottle and a small towel, dampens it, then wipes off your forehead. “It’s a girl.” She coos, watching as your shoulders drop in exhaustion. “A healthy baby girl.” 

Talia, leaning against the doorway, speaks up. “She has Damian’s temper, certainly.” But the mention of her son only brings up a smile, her eyes trained on you. When you turn your head, you watch Batwoman, The Spoiler, and Black Canary smile at you through the window. Or, at least, Black Canary and Batwoman both wore affectionate smiles, with Stephanie giving you two thumbs up that became finger-guns. 

Gotham was a busy city. They still needed crime fighters even when you were giving birth. You don’t take it personally when Black Canary jabs her thumb in the opposite direction and they all jump off, into the night. 

Barbara’s still wiping off your chest, and the nurse says something about it being her job, not Barbara’s. You hold onto your daughter in a fuzzy white blanket, a matching blue-striped hat. You kiss her forehead, trying not to clutch her too closely, trying not to accidentally hurt her. 

Dahma opens her eyes, squinting and kittenish, and she has Damian’s beautiful green eyes, Talia’s eyes. You feel your eyes well up with tears, but effort and exhaustion outweighs all other feelings. Making sure her head was supported, you tilt back and fall asleep.

-

Your daughter is two months old and the perfect  weight for you to carry her in your arms everywhere you go. You articulate Arabic to her, sing ‘nini ya moumou’, your fingers walking up her pudgy arms. You’re never at a lack of babysitters, but you prefer to have her where you can hold her. Talia stops by weekly, usually on Fridays, and holds Dahma in her arms, blinks back tears when she tries to say ‘jaddah’ and just comes out with a very strong ‘dah!’. 

The crib is in your room (no longer ‘Damian’s room that you shared’), and Bruce sleeps in the guest room beside you. Sometimes you catch him rocking your daughter, but you know it’s more for his sake that the baby’s. Dick tries to give you nights off, pulls the crib into his room, and Dahma loves her uncle, but you always show up in the middle of the night, sheepish, unable to sleep without her breathing next to you.

She is three months, two weeks, and three days old when someone breaks into the Wayne Manor successfully and comes up the stairs. You’re the only one awake, rocking your child in your arms, many of the other’s out on patrol. You’re not scared- you’re strangely indignant, angry that anyone would _dare_  think they could come into _your_ home, come near _your_ child-

You might be spending too much time around Talia. 

Damian always kept a sword behind the bed, resting on the frame, where he could reach down and unsheathe it if need be. One arm cradling your child (knowing it’s a poor stance but not wanting to risk there being multiple attackers and one of them getting to Dahma) and the other holding the sword out, the shadow comes underneath your door, the handle turning, finding it locked. 

A key fitting into the lock, the knob turning. Your breath held tight in your lungs. 

“ _Habibati_?” Damian croaks out, because your sword ( _his sword_ ) is extended to his throat. He’s half-slumped, holding onto the door frame for support, staring at your face. He opens his mouth and you can hear how dry it is. He goes to move, hands out, and you change grips on the sword. He stares, stunned. 

“Damian Wayne is dead.” You say, because he is, and because there are plenty of people who could shapeshift and look like him, and not one of them would get your child before you got a few fatal blows on them. “What do you want?”

Damian falls completely to his knees, his head never once falling. He’s still staring at you, the love of his life, unable to contain the relief that you remained alive, whole, able to hold a sword to his throat. “I'm sorry.” He’s hoarse and, when he smiles, his bottom lip cracks. “I told you I would never leave you.” His eyes close. “I didn’t mean to.”

Your hold shakes, the metal shivering until you finally throw it to the side, landing on the carpet, but hitting the wall with a metallic clang. In your arms, Dahma stirs, until she wakes up, tilting her head, opening her eyes and starts to cry, loudly and open-mouthed. Whatever brief fears you’d had of Damian having still been alive and just died in front of you are assuaged when his eyes snap open, bloodshot but alert. 

“I-” He struggles to his feet and, knowing it’s him, knowing it in your bones, you hold out an arm to help him up. He takes it, his eyes never leaving Dahma, watching as you bounce her into calmness again. “Is... Is that-” He can’t say it, his eyes wide and _excited_  for a man that was probably on the brink of death for over a year. 

“Our daughter.” Tears start sliding down his face, and he reaches for her, before pulling his arms back. “Dahma? It’s your _baba._ ” Dahma stares at him, reaching out for his face. 

“’ba.” She mimics, just babbling, still searching for his face. He’s still wearing the Batman suit, and you both will have a discussion about where he was later, because he’s still crying. 

He moves like he’s going to go to hold her, but stops. “I... I must shower first- if she got sick because I didn’t I would never-” His knees buckle again, still reaching out for his daughter. You inhale, once, then call out for Bruce as he falls to the side, still breathing, but wholly unconscious, the ears on the cowl making two black lines on the carpet.

**Author's Note:**

> Request:  
> Can you do something about not knowing your pregnant with Damian's baby when he dies, and when he comes back he finds you with his child?


End file.
